{"id":374647,"date":"2025-12-27T16:01:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T16:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/374647\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T16:01:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T16:01:20","slug":"the-ashes-the-double-blow-englands-boxing-day-test-victory-landed-on-australian-cricket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/374647\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ashes: The double blow England\u2019s Boxing Day Test victory landed on Australian cricket"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a woeful tour full of headlines, criticism and a boozy break, England has finally won its first Test match in Australia in 15 years.<\/p>\n

And in a double blow, have subjected Cricket Australia to a big financial blow in the wake of a frenetic Boxing Day Test that finished in just two days.<\/p>\n

England finally came to play a week after Australia took an unassailable lead in the Ashes, claiming the fourth Test by four wickets, leaving the series score 3-1 with one match to play.<\/p>\n

It is just the fourth Test in Australian history to be done before the end of day two, but is remarkably the second of this Ashes series.<\/p>\n

The game\u2019s governing body will have a shortfall worth millions of dollars for each day lost, with this hit likely to be significantly larger than the one they copped when the Perth Test also finished early in November.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because of an unprecedented attendance. Day one\u2019s monster attendance of 94,199 was the biggest ever at a cricket match in Australia and day two\u2019s crowd of 92,045 became the second.<\/p>\n

They saw one of the most bizarre games of cricket played on these shores, with 36 wickets taken on a pitch that made batting a nightmare in just six sessions.<\/p>\n

England captain Ben Stokes and his predecessor Joe Root have both been on four Ashes tours of Australia and neither had won a single match.<\/p>\n

Stokes was dismissed by Mitchell Starc just shy of the victory target and said he was so nervous \u201c10 runs felt a long way when I got out\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an awesome feeling. I\u2019ve been on a couple of tours before where it\u2019s not gone too well, so to end up on the right side of the result after a long period of time is a pretty special feeling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Their victory comes after criticism ramped up over their mid-series break to Noosa. Video of Ben Duckett and young gun Jacob Bethell partying and appearing to be heavily intoxicated emerged, further increasing the heat of the tourists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe couple days building up to this Test match were obviously difficult for us,\u201d Stokes said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way in which the leadership group … were able to try and keep as much focus as possible on the cricket that was coming up was very important.\u201d<\/p>\n

But regardless of the result in the Sydney Test, which begins on January 4 at the SCG, Australia\u2019s stronghold on the precious urn will stretch beyond a decade. England last won the series in 2015 and last won Down Under four years before that.<\/p>\n

Both captains said the rapid-fire matches were not good for the sport, with even Stokes \u2014 the engineer of England\u2019s hell-for-leather BazBall approach \u2014 advocating for longer contests.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing brutally honest, that\u2019s not really what you want,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"EnglandCamera IconEngland captain Ben Stokes applauds travelling England supporters. Credit: Gareth Copley\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cBoxing Day Test match, you don\u2019t want a game finishing in less than two days. It\u2019s not ideal.<\/p>\n

Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg did not shy away from the issue on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimple phrase I\u2019d use is \u2018short Tests are bad for business\u2019,\u201d Greenberg said on SEN.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t be much more blunt than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aussie stand-in skipper Steve Smith said he felt mostly for the fans. The total attendance would have rocketed past 300,000 if the match had gone for four or more days.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously the finances aren\u2019t great, I think it was a sell-out tomorrow if we got there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"SteveCamera IconSteve Smith of Australia and Ben Stokes of England shake hands. Credit: Quinn Rooney\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s disappointing for those that wanted to come along, but it happens sometimes in cricket, it goes quick.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the Tests, regardless of the wicket, are being played in fast-forward the way both teams have been playing with the bat, quite aggressively and getting scores quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis one, over in two days, it\u2019s not ideal. It would be good if it was a little bit longer and we were able to entertain some fans a bit more, but it wasn\u2019t to be on this occasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a woeful tour full of headlines, criticism and a boozy break, England has finally won its first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,588,85,33383],"class_list":{"0":"post-374647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sport","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-the-ashes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}